Facebook Fights Irish Privacy Watchdog’s Data-Transfer Curbs

Facebook sought to derail proposals by the Irish data protection watchdog that the tech giant warns could curb transfers of vast amounts of commercial data across the Atlantic. From a report: The social network giant said it sought a judicial review of the Irish Data Protection Commission’s preliminary decision that the company may have to halt trans-Atlantic data transfers using the most commonly used EU tool still available to firms. “A lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would have damaging consequences for the European economy,” Facebook said in a statement Friday. “We urge regulators to adopt a pragmatic and proportionate approach until a sustainable long-term solution can be reached.” In an investigation into Facebook’s data transfers, the Irish authority told the company that so-called standard contractual clauses “cannot in practice be used for EU-US data transfers,” according to a blog post by Facebook this week.